It's Out of Control

beccasue37 @ 2006-07-13T12:01:00

2006-07-13T17:04:45Z

ok- so it has been a long time since I posted anything here. This summer has not been what I planned and I don't know that I'll look back on it and think "Man, it WAS a good summer." like I did last year's. Oh well. I can only enjoy it from here on out. I have made some friends that I definitely would not have spent any time with had I not been forced to but am thankful that I now know them. I am quite sad about not seeing some truly close friends that I had wanted to spend lazy weekends with and afternoons by the pool. The summer is young, I know. I need to write my thesis. I am almost willing to pay someone else to do it now. I have a family reunion this weekend. Get excited! I will get to see a cousin that is cool so that helps. I miss my dogs.

Hey Hey Hey

2006-01-25T03:45:09Z

Hey guys!
Sorry I've been so absent. Classes seem to be going well. That is good. I don't know what the deal is but I'm in kind of a funk, for today. I think I'm sleepy. That always makes me grumpy. I have enjoyed seeing people that I like and didn't spend much time with last semester. I have such high expectations for this semester. Maybe that's not fair but that is how it is going to be. I've come to some for real conclusions and made some important decisions. It makes me feel adult-like. Maybe I don't want to be an adult but I'm not sure I've ever felt like a true college student. I like who I am and what I believe and know. Not many people like who they are so I am very excited that I do. Many people don't know who they are and that makes me sad for them. ok. I need to sleep.

ok-

2005-12-26T01:23:30Z

OK- so I have realized that there are many things that people don't know about me, so I will share a few. Yeah for lists!!

1. I may cry when Dolly Parton dies. She is cool.
2. Plucking my eyebrows makes me sneeze.
3. "If I had a boat" and "Passionate Kisses" would be on my if-you-only-had-one-cd-to-make-and-listen-to-ever-again cd.
4. I need a baby penguin.
5. I have big dreams of buying and re-opening the Gin in Oxford.
6. I have picked the stalls of three horses everyday during break.
7. I speak French to myself out loud in my car when I am alone.
8. I cry at the end of "The Story of Us" every time, mainly because I think I am Michelle Pfieffer's character and it makes me sad kind of.
9. I look good in brown and blue and red. Does that make me a winter?
10. I can do an old-man dance. No, I won't show you.

Love you all.

ok so here's something I learned

2005-12-17T02:46:53Z

OK- so I have learned- maybe realized- that I am in no way responsible for other people's sin, mistakes and irresponsibility. I'm just not. I'd like to be because I want to be able to fix it. It would be easier if I could be responsible for everyone. I'd like to think that I could do ok. Probably not, but we can all wish. Here's the other thing- other people's mistakes affect people. So remember that before you screw up. I don't want to live in my own world where I don't think about the consequences of my actions and how they affect other people. Not that decisions should be based on others but when decisions involve more than yourself, then their welfare should be taken into consideration. I know this sounds angry- but it really isn't at all. Just a realization. Nothing has really happened to trigger this either. Anyway, I like being home. David and I laid hardwood. Yeah I'm awesome. :)
Top 5 Things I love about home:
1. Family and David
2. Stop and Save breakfast- man it is amazing
3. Sir Pizza
4. Dogs
5. Crazy Gossip- yeah it's part of being home and part of me likes knowing what people are up to. THey're probably talking about me too. Like today, I was at #3 and there were pictures of some guys in military uniforms on the wall. I looked at them- yeah it was Keith Jenkins, my first kiss in 5th grade at Erin King's birthday party playing spin the bottle, and Gabe Neal, the boy that sat next to me at graduation. I made him hold my speech, silly string, keys, etc. because I was wearing a dress and had no pockets. We're all starting to grow up. Scary.

Oh, how I love finals week...

2005-12-08T16:50:19Z

no, seriously, I do. I love not having class and being done early and sleeping/hanging out/shopping/reading/and other stuff like not cleaning my room or packing. I am really loving to read right now. I have read some good (and some bad) books this semester and just spent the morning alone at Bottle Tree and then Square and Off Square Books. Now I am sitting in my bed watching a little TV and enjoying being warm in my bed. I don't like leaving a particular place (coffee shop, etc.) and smelling like that place. Also, I have had TWO people tell me in the past 24 hours that I was too old to be 21- that I act like a grandma. One of these people was an adult and one was a peer. I'd like to think I am fairly non- grandma-like. Anyway, oh well if I am. Merry Christmas to all!!

Who had the best Thanksgiving? Me.

2005-11-28T17:51:41Z

ok- so this has been the BEST end to a semester ever. I have a few papers to write and such but NO tests (except maybe French but it isn't a test)and that's it. I will be done by noon on Tuesday. Hopefully the Honors College NEEDS me to work the week after finals so I won't have to get a retail (insert throw up noise) job at home. I may just work with David. I will, of course, need to get a tool belt. Blythe and I are going to Costa Rica on January 3rd! YES! It will be amazing. I know. So Thanksgiving was tremendous. I saw the family and some Brits and I spent some time with David in Memphis- it was fantastic. We got to hang out and goof off. I got some crazy marital advice from ole men with rifles. Those guys are out of control. I hope you all had a great week as well. Bye.

P.S. I think the blue thing that displays my mood should jump if I am excited.

Finally...

2005-11-18T17:46:45Z

David is coming to visit!!!!!! Could I be more excited? NO!!!!! Also, my mom made a 10 lb. lasagna (maybe that is an exaggeration)and a salad and bread that she is sending with David for dinner. How exciting? The boy and mom's cooking. Yes! Our house is going to be jammed pack this weekend. Someone may have to pitch a tent and sleep outside with the cold. Too bad for them. I got my hair cut and now it is kind of cute and I like that. Cute hair is always good. The semester is practically over- yes! But really- where did it go? It FLEW! I am writing my final story for my magazine class on interracial dating. I guess I was so naive to think that it wasn't an issue any longer- right, well in case you were wondering, it is. I don't like that it is an issue.

Read this- I did.

2005-11-04T22:37:02Z

OK- I read this and I think you should too. It is kind of long but girls may be able to relate and understand it and boys should read it because I said to and because I want to know what you guys are REALLY looking for in a woman. Be honest. I'm not saying I agree completely about everything she says but it made me think about some things.

What's a Modern Girl to Do?

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: October 30, 2005

When I entered college in 1969, women were bursting out of their 50's chrysalis, shedding girdles, padded bras and conventions. The Jazz Age spirit flared in the Age of Aquarius. Women were once again imitating men and acting all independent: smoking, drinking, wanting to earn money and thinking they had the right to be sexual, this time protected by the pill. I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists. I was more of a fun-loving (if chaste) type who would decades later come to life in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. I hated the grubby, unisex jeans and no-makeup look and drugs that zoned you out, and I couldn't understand the appeal of dances that didn't involve touching your partner. In the universe of Eros, I longed for style and wit. I loved the Art Deco glamour of 30's movies. I wanted to dance the Continental like Fred and Ginger in white hotel suites; drink martinis like Myrna Loy and William Powell; live the life of a screwball heroine like Katharine Hepburn, wearing a gold lamé gown cut on the bias, cavorting with Cary Grant, strolling along Fifth Avenue with my pet leopard.

My mom would just shake her head and tell me that my idea of the 30's was wildly romanticized. "We were poor," she'd say. "We didn't dance around in white hotel suites." I took the idealism and passion of the 60's for granted, simply assuming we were sailing toward perfect equality with men, a utopian world at home and at work. I didn't listen to her when she cautioned me about the chimera of equality.

On my 31st birthday, she sent me a bankbook with a modest nest egg she had saved for me. "I always felt that the girls in a family should get a little more than the boys even though all are equally loved," she wrote in a letter. "They need a little cushion to fall back on. Women can stand on the Empire State Building and scream to the heavens that they are equal to men and liberated, but until they have the same anatomy, it's a lie. It's more of a man's world today than ever. Men can eat their cake in unlimited bakeries."

I thought she was just being Old World, like my favorite jade, Dorothy Parker, when she wrote:

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

I thought the struggle for egalitarianism was a cinch, so I could leave it to my earnest sisters in black turtlenecks and Birkenstocks. I figured there was plenty of time for me to get serious later, that America would always be full of passionate and full-throated debate about the big stuff - social issues, sexual equality, civil rights. Little did I realize that the feminist revolution would have the unexpected consequence of intensifying the confusion between the sexes, leaving women in a tangle of dependence and independence as they entered the 21st century.

Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years.

Despite the best efforts of philosophers, politicians, historians, novelists, screenwriters, linguists, therapists, anthropologists and facilitators, men and women are still in a muddle in the boardroom, the bedroom and the Situation Room.

Courtship

My mom gave me three essential books on the subject of men. The first, when I was 13, was "On Becoming a Woman." The second, when I was 21, was "365 Ways to Cook Hamburger." The third, when I was 25, was "How to Catch and Hold a Man," by Yvonne Antelle. ("Keep thinking of yourself as a soft, mysterious cat.. . .Men are fascinated by bright, shiny objects, by lots of curls, lots of hair on the head . . . by bows, ribbons, ruffles and bright colors.. . .Sarcasm is dangerous. Avoid it altogether.")

Because I received "How to Catch and Hold a Man" at a time when we were entering the Age of Equality, I put it aside as an anachronism. After all, sometime in the 1960's flirting went out of fashion, as did ironing boards, makeup and the idea that men needed to be "trapped" or "landed." The way to approach men, we reasoned, was forthrightly and without games, artifice or frills. Unfortunately, history has shown this to be a misguided notion.

I knew it even before the 1995 publication of "The Rules," a dating bible that encouraged women to return to prefeminist mind games by playing hard to get. ("Don't stay on the phone for more than 10 minutes.. . .Even if you are the head of your own company. . .when you're with a man you like, be quiet and mysterious, act ladylike, cross your legs and smile.. . .Wear black sheer pantyhose and hike up your skirt to entice the opposite sex!")

I knew this before fashion magazines became crowded with crinolines, bows, ruffles, leopard-skin scarves, 50's party dresses and other sartorial equivalents of flirting and with articles like "The Return of Hard to Get." ("I think it behooves us to stop offering each other these pearls of feminism, to stop saying, 'So, why don't you call him?"' a writer lectured in Mademoiselle. "Some men must have the thrill of the chase.")

I knew things were changing because a succession of my single girlfriends had called, sounding sheepish, to ask if they could borrow my out-of-print copy of "How to Catch and Hold a Man."

Decades after the feminist movement promised equality with men, it was becoming increasingly apparent that many women would have to brush up on the venerable tricks of the trade: an absurdly charming little laugh, a pert toss of the head, an air of saucy triumph, dewy eyes and a full knowledge of music, drawing, elegant note writing and geography. It would once more be considered captivating to lie on a chaise longue, pass a lacy handkerchief across the eyelids and complain of a case of springtime giddiness.

Today, women have gone back to hunting their quarry - in person and in cyberspace - with elaborate schemes designed to allow the deluded creatures to think they are the hunters. "Men like hunting, and we shouldn't deprive them of their chance to do their hunting and mating rituals," my 26-year-old friend Julie Bosman, a New York Times reporter, says. "As my mom says, Men don't like to be chased." Or as the Marvelettes sang, "The hunter gets captured by the game."

These days the key to staying cool in the courtship rituals is B. & I., girls say - Busy and Important. "As much as you're waiting for that little envelope to appear on your screen," says Carrie Foster, a 29-year-old publicist in Washington, "you happen to have a lot of stuff to do anyway." If a guy rejects you or turns out to be the essence of evil, you can ratchet up from B. & I. to C.B.B., Can't Be Bothered. In the T.M.I. - Too Much Information - digital age, there can be infinite technological foreplay.

Helen Fisher, a Rutgers anthropologist, concurs with Julie: "What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag."

Women might dye their hair, apply makeup and spend hours finding a hip-slimming dress, she said, while men may drive a nice car or wear a fancy suit that makes them seem richer than they are. In this retro world, a woman must play hard to get but stay soft as a kitten. And avoid sarcasm. Altogether.

Money

In those faraway, long-ago days of feminism, there was talk about equal pay for equal work. Now there's talk about "girl money."

A friend of mine in her 30's says it is a term she hears bandied about the New York dating scene. She also notes a shift in the type of gifts given at wedding showers around town, a reversion to 50's-style offerings: soup ladles and those frilly little aprons from Anthropologie and vintage stores are being unwrapped along with see-through nighties and push-up bras.

"What I find most disturbing about the 1950's-ification and retrogression of women's lives is that it has seeped into the corporate and social culture, where it can do real damage," she complains. "Otherwise intelligent men, who know women still earn less than men as a rule, say things like: 'I'll get the check. You only have girl money."'

Throughout the long, dark ages of undisputed patriarchy, women connived to trade beauty and sex for affluence and status. In the first flush of feminism, women offered to pay half the check with "woman money" as a way to show that these crass calculations - that a woman's worth in society was determined by her looks, that she was an ornament up for sale to the highest bidder - no longer applied.

Now dating etiquette has reverted. Young women no longer care about using the check to assert their equality. They care about using it to assess their sexuality. Going Dutch is an archaic feminist relic. Young women talk about it with disbelief and disdain. "It's a scuzzy 70's thing, like platform shoes on men," one told me.

"Feminists in the 70's went overboard," Anne Schroeder, a 26-year-old magazine editor in Washington, agrees. "Paying is like opening a car door. It's nice. I appreciate it. But he doesn't have to."

Unless he wants another date.

Women in their 20's think old-school feminists looked for equality in all the wrong places, that instead of fighting battles about whether women should pay for dinner or wear padded bras they should have focused only on big economic issues.

After Googling and Bikramming to get ready for a first dinner date, a modern girl will end the evening with the Offering, an insincere bid to help pay the check. "They make like they are heading into their bag after a meal, but it is a dodge," Marc Santora, a 30-year-old Metro reporter for The Times, says. "They know you will stop them before a credit card can be drawn. If you don't, they hold it against you."

One of my girlfriends, a TV producer in New York, told me much the same thing: "If you offer, and they accept, then it's over."

Jurassic feminists shudder at the retro implication of a quid profiterole. But it doesn't matter if the woman is making as much money as the man, or more, she expects him to pay, both to prove her desirability and as a way of signaling romance - something that's more confusing in a dating culture rife with casual hookups and group activities. (Once beyond the initial testing phase and settled in a relationship, of course, she can pony up more.)

"There are plenty of ways for me to find out if he's going to see me as an equal without disturbing the dating ritual," one young woman says. "Disturbing the dating ritual leads to chaos. Everybody knows that."

When I asked a young man at my gym how he and his lawyer girlfriend were going to divide the costs on a California vacation, he looked askance. "She never offers," he replied. "And I like paying for her." It is, as one guy said, "one of the few remaining ways we can demonstrate our manhood."

Power Dynamics

At a party for the Broadway opening of "Sweet Smell of Success," a top New York producer gave me a lecture on the price of female success that was anything but sweet. He confessed that he had wanted to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages but nixed the idea because my job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties. Will she be critical of absolutely everything, even his manhood?

He had hit on a primal fear of single successful women: that the aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality.

A few years ago at a White House correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful and successful actress. Within minutes, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with young women whose job it was was to care for them and nurture them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.

John Schwartz of The New York Times made the trend official in 2004 when he reported: "Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame." A study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggested that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors. Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them. There it is, right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too independent.

"The hypothesis," Dr. Stephanie Brown, the lead author of the study, theorized, "is that there are evolutionary pressures on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not their own." Women, by contrast, did not show a marked difference between their attraction to men who might work above them and their attraction to men who might work below them.

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?

After I first wrote on this subject, a Times reader named Ray Lewis e-mailed me. While we had assumed that making ourselves more professionally accomplished would make us more fascinating, it turned out, as Lewis put it, that smart women were "draining at times."

Or as Bill Maher more crudely but usefully summed it up to Craig Ferguson on the "Late Late Show" on CBS: "Women get in relationships because they want somebody to talk to. Men want women to shut up."

Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes' going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," a book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of 35-year-old career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have children, compared with only 19 percent of the men.

Hewlett quantified, yet again, that men have an unfair advantage. "Nowadays," she said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."

A 2005 report by researchers at four British universities indicated that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to marry, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.

On a "60 Minutes" report on the Hewlett book, Lesley Stahl talked to two young women who went to Harvard Business School. They agreed that while they were the perfect age to start families, they didn't find it easy to meet the right mates.

Men, apparently, learn early to protect their eggshell egos from high-achieving women. The girls said they hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death. "The H-bomb," they dubbed it. "As soon as you say Harvard Business School . . . that's the end of the conversation," Ani Vartanian said. "As soon as the guys say, 'Oh, I go to Harvard Business School,' all the girls start falling into them."

Hewlett thinks that the 2005 American workplace is more macho than ever. "It's actually much more difficult now than 10 years ago to have a career and raise a family," she told me. "The trend lines continue that highly educated women in many countries are increasingly dealing with this creeping nonchoice and end up on this path of delaying finding a mate and delaying childbearing. Whether you're looking at Italy, Russia or the U.S., all of that is true." Many women continue to fear that the more they accomplish, the more they may have to sacrifice. They worry that men still veer away from "challenging" women because of a male atavistic desire to be the superior force in a relationship.

"With men and women, it's always all about control issues, isn't it?" says a guy I know, talking about his bitter divorce.

Or, as Craig Bierko, a musical comedy star and actor who played one of Carrie's boyfriends on "Sex and the City," told me, "Deep down, beneath the bluster and machismo, men are simply afraid to say that what they're truly looking for in a woman is an intelligent, confident and dependable partner in life whom they can devote themselves to unconditionally until she's 40."

Ms. Versus Mrs.

"Ms." was supposed to neutralize the stature of women, so they weren't publicly defined by their marital status. When The Times finally agreed to switch to Ms. in its news pages in 1986, after much hectoring by feminists, Gloria Steinem sent flowers to the executive editor, Abe Rosenthal. But nowadays most young brides want to take their husbands' names and brag on the moniker Mrs., a brand that proclaims you belong to him. T-shirts with "MRS." emblazoned in sequins or sparkly beads are popular wedding-shower gifts.

A Harvard economics professor, Claudia Goldin, did a study last year that found that 44 percent of women in the Harvard class of 1980 who married within 10 years of graduation kept their birth names, while in the class of '90 it was down to 32 percent. In 1990, 23 percent of college-educated women kept their own names after marriage, while a decade later the number had fallen to 17 percent.

Time magazine reported that an informal poll in the spring of 2005 by the Knot, a wedding Web site, showed similar results: 81 percent of respondents took their spouse's last name, an increase from 71 percent in 2000. The number of women with hyphenated surnames fell from 21 percent to 8 percent.

"It's a return to romance, a desire to make marriage work," Goldin told one interviewer, adding that young women might feel that by keeping their own names they were aligning themselves with tedious old-fashioned feminists, and this might be a turnoff to them.

The professor, who married in 1979 and kept her name, undertook the study after her niece, a lawyer, changed hers. "She felt that her generation of women didn't have to do the same things mine did, because of what we had already achieved," Goldin told Time.

Many women now do not think of domestic life as a "comfortable concentration camp," as Betty Friedan wrote in "The Feminine Mystique," where they are losing their identities and turning into "anonymous biological robots in a docile mass." Now they want to be Mrs. Anonymous Biological Robot in a Docile Mass. They dream of being rescued - to flirt, to shop, to stay home and be taken care of. They shop for "Stepford Fashions" - matching shoes and ladylike bags and the 50's-style satin, lace and chiffon party dresses featured in InStyle layouts - and spend their days at the gym trying for Wisteria Lane waistlines.

The Times recently ran a front-page article about young women attending Ivy League colleges, women who are being groomed to take their places in the professional and political elite, who are planning to reject careers in favor of playing traditional roles, staying home and raising children.

"My mother always told me you can't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time," the brainy, accomplished Cynthia Liu told Louise Story, explaining why she hoped to be a stay-at-home mom a few years after she goes to law school. "You always have to choose one over the other."

Kate White, the editor of Cosmopolitan, told me that she sees a distinct shift in what her readers want these days. "Women now don't want to be in the grind," she said. "The baby boomers made the grind seem unappealing."

Cynthia Russett, a professor of American history at Yale, told Story that women today are simply more "realistic," having seen the dashed utopia of those who assumed it wouldn't be so hard to combine full-time work and child rearing.

To the extent that young women are rejecting the old idea of copying men and reshaping the world around their desires, it's exhilarating progress. But to the extent that a pampered class of females is walking away from the problem and just planning to marry rich enough to cosset themselves in a narrow world of dependence on men, it's an irritating setback. If the new ethos is "a woman needs a career like a fish needs a bicycle," it won't be healthy.

Movies

In all those Tracy-Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. You still see it onscreen occasionally - the incendiary chemistry of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing married assassins aiming for mutually assured orgasms and destruction in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Interestingly, that movie was described as retro because of its salty battle of wits between two peppery lovers. Moviemakers these days are more interested in exploring what Steve Martin, in his novel "Shopgirl," calls the "calm cushion" of romances between unequals.

In James Brooks's movie "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, playing a sensitive Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid, just as in "Maid in Manhattan," Ralph Fiennes, playing a sensitive New York pol, falls for the hot Latino maid at his hotel, played by Jennifer Lopez. Sandler's maid, who cleans up for him without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman, in looks and character. His wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm and fears she has lost her identity.

In 2003, we had "Girl With a Pearl Earring," in which Colin Firth's Vermeer erotically paints Scarlett Johansson's Dutch maid, and Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," about the attraction of unequals. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson, the sister of the prime minister, falls for his sultry secretary. A novelist played by Colin Firth falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese.

Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection.

It's funny. I come from a family of Irish domestics - statuesque, 6-foot-tall women who cooked, kept house and acted as nannies for some of America's first families. I was always so proud of achieving more - succeeding in a high-powered career that would have been closed to my great-aunts. How odd, then, to find out now that being a maid would have enhanced my chances with men.

An upstairs maid, of course.

Women's Magazines

Cosmo is still the best-selling magazine on college campuses, as it was when I was in college, and the best-selling monthly magazine on the newsstand. The June 2005 issue, with Jessica Simpson on the cover, her cleavage spilling out of an orange crocheted halter dress, could have been June 1970. The headlines are familiar: "How to turn him on in 10 words or less," "Do You Make Men M-E-L-T? Take our quiz," "Bridal Special," Cosmo's stud search and "Cosmo's Most Famous Sex Tips; the Legendary Tricks That Have Brought Countless Guys to Their Knees." (Sex Trick 4: "Place a glazed doughnut around your man's member, then gently nibble the pastry and lick the icing . . . as well as his manhood." Another favorite Cosmo trick is to yell out during sex which of your girlfriends thinks your man is hot.)

At any newsstand, you'll see the original Cosmo girl's man-crazy, sex-obsessed image endlessly, tiresomely replicated, even for the teen set. On the cover of Elle Girl: "267 Ways to Look Hot."

"There has been lots of copying - look at Glamour," Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmo's founding editor told me and sighed. "I used to have all the sex to myself."

Before it curdled into a collection of stereotypes, feminism had fleetingly held out a promise that there would be some precincts of womanly life that were not all about men. But it never quite materialized.

It took only a few decades to create a brazen new world where the highest ideal is to acknowledge your inner slut. I am woman; see me strip. Instead of peaceful havens of girl things and boy things, we have a society where women of all ages are striving to become self-actualized sex kittens. Hollywood actresses now work out by taking pole-dancing classes.

Female sexuality has been a confusing corkscrew path, not a serene progressive arc. We had decades of Victorian prudery, when women were not supposed to like sex. Then we had the pill and zipless encounters, when women were supposed to have the same animalistic drive as men. Then it was discovered - shock, horror! - that men and women are not alike in their desires. But zipless morphed into hookups, and the more one-night stands the girls on "Sex and the City" had, the grumpier they got.

Oddly enough, Felix Dennis, who created the top-selling Maxim, said he stole his "us against the world" lad-magazine attitude from women's magazines like Cosmo. Just as women didn't mind losing Cosmo's prestigious fiction as the magazine got raunchier, plenty of guys were happy to lose the literary pretensions of venerable men's magazines and embrace simple-minded gender stereotypes, like the Maxim manifesto instructing women, "If we see you in the morning and night, why call us at work?"

Jessica Simpson and Eva Longoria move seamlessly from showing their curves on the covers of Cosmo and Glamour to Maxim, which dubbed Simpson "America's favorite ball and chain!" In the summer of 2005, both British GQ and FHM featured Pamela Anderson busting out of their covers. ("I think of my breasts as props," she told FHM.)

A lot of women now want to be Maxim babes as much as men want Maxim babes. So women have moved from fighting objectification to seeking it. "I have been surprised," Maxim's editor, Ed Needham, confessed to me, "to find that a lot of women would want to be somehow validated as a Maxim girl type, that they'd like to be thought of as hot and would like their boyfriends to take pictures of them or make comments about them that mirror the Maxim representation of a woman, the Pamela Anderson sort of brand. That, to me, is kind of extraordinary."

The luscious babes on the cover of Maxim were supposed to be men's fantasy guilty pleasures, after all, not their real life-affirming girlfriends.

Beauty

While I never related to the unstyled look of the early feminists and I tangled with boyfriends who did not want me to wear makeup and heels, I always assumed that one positive result of the feminist movement would be a more flexible and capacious notion of female beauty, a release from the tyranny of the girdled, primped ideal of the 50's.

I was wrong. Forty years after the dawn of feminism, the ideal of feminine beauty is more rigid and unnatural than ever.

When Gloria Steinem wrote that "all women are Bunnies," she did not mean it as a compliment; it was a feminist call to arms. Decades later, it's just an aesthetic fact, as more and more women embrace Botox and implants and stretch and protrude to extreme proportions to satisfy male desires. Now that technology is biology, all women can look like inflatable dolls. It's clear that American narcissism has trumped American feminism.

It was naïve and misguided for the early feminists to tendentiously demonize Barbie and Cosmo girl, to disdain such female proclivities as shopping, applying makeup and hunting for sexy shoes and cute boyfriends and to prognosticate a world where men and women dressed alike and worked alike in navy suits and were equal in every way.

But it is equally naïve and misguided for young women now to fritter away all their time shopping for boudoirish clothes and text-messaging about guys while they disdainfully ignore gender politics and the seismic shifts on the Supreme Court that will affect women's rights for a generation.

What I didn't like at the start of the feminist movement was that young women were dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. They were supposed to be liberated, but it just seemed like stifling conformity.

What I don't like now is that the young women rejecting the feminist movement are dressing alike, looking alike and thinking alike. The plumage is more colorful, the shapes are more curvy, the look is more plastic, the message is diametrically opposite - before it was don't be a sex object; now it's be a sex object - but the conformity is just as stifling.

And the Future . . .

Having boomeranged once, will women do it again in a couple of decades? If we flash forward to 2030, will we see all those young women who thought trying to Have It All was a pointless slog, now middle-aged and stranded in suburbia, popping Ativan, struggling with rebellious teenagers, deserted by husbands for younger babes, unable to get back into a work force they never tried to be part of?

It's easy to picture a surreally familiar scene when women realize they bought into a raw deal and old trap. With no power or money or independence, they'll be mere domestic robots, lasering their legs and waxing their floors - or vice versa - and desperately seeking a new Betty Friedan.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times. This essay is adapted from "Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide," to be published next month by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

OK- Who is 21? ME!

2005-11-02T17:31:50Z

ok- so I turned 21 this past Saturday. Obviously, my life has not significantly changed because of it. Oh well. BUT David did tell he was excited that I was 21- probably because it doesn't make him look like such a cradle-robber. I have also been sick, as is the trend now evidently. I went scuba diving this past weekend and am now a CERTIFIED diver- that's right. I'm certified- to buy alcohol and dive- all in the same weekend. My mom is coming today and I am SO excited. She is cooking for me and my roommates and that makes me happy. There is nothing like a mom when you feel bad and are hungry and broke. As Tasha said, "I'm just excited about there being a mom in the house- it doesn't matter whose, just as long as it is a mom." Ann Lowrey- Ada will feel that about you one day- isn't that exciting? She probably already does. I like moms, the more I think about it. No I do not want to be one, but I appreciate the one I have and others as well. They're smart and cool- even if they're not smart and cool. They know a lot more than me and they know me and what I like and I don't have to explain that to them. Yeah for no explanations. ok- so that was mom kick. I am going away AGAIN this weekend- but it will be fun. I am also going to Louisville for Erin's birthday next week- shh don't tell her, it is a surprise, but should be a blast because I am riding with my good friend Rachel from high school. Chris and Dave and Marcus- Erin may need a birthday card as well. She likes you guys. SO! Who are the CUTEST dinosaurs in the world? Matt Sharpe and myself. Yes we roared! And won a contest. We may show you pictures. Thanks to my MOM who made costumes. Yes for moms on Halloween. OK- well I will work and read now. Au Revoir- OH! I made a 28 out of 30 on my French Project. Yes that is good.

beccasue37 @ 2005-10-21T12:39:00

2005-10-21T17:43:18Z

Things I hate:
1. Locking my keys in my car and then paying $45 to get them out.

I think that's it. Kim's entry has got me thinking about 1000 different things about the future. I am so happy where I am now and am enjoying the present like crazy, but you have to think and plan for the future- not dwell on it- but consider it. I, like Kim, am going to go to law school I hope. It is weird to think that you say you're going to grow up and be ______ or whatever and now is the time when that is starting to happen. You start becoming those ______ things. It is odd to me. I will be an adult officially in 8 days.

What I love...

2005-10-12T17:19:50Z

ok- so you know what I love? (Besides that awful list from last post)- fun. I really do. I was talking to Ann Lowrey today and she was talking about the fair- FUN! I love rides and such. That is all about fun for now. I am going home tomorrow for about 194739 reasons but mainly because I have to go to David's mom's monster-big-important birthday party for someone I don't know. She has been planning this for months now and I even received an invitation just for me. It wasn't like: TO: David and Guest, it was like To: Rebecca- come even if David doesn't. Yeah so I am going to wear my light pink pants and be oh so cute. That's the plan anyway. I think my life may be in order now. This makes me happy. I have filled out forms and made some calls and planned out next semester's classes (which I love to do by the way)and that makes me happy. So, all in all, things are good and that is good. Also good, that my neighbor will cut my grass this weekend.

My favorite

2005-10-08T22:34:25Z

ok- so these are my favorite posts and I'm sorry that I post them often but not sorry enough to stop. So anyway.
Things I love today:
- My gold jewelry- I looked like an Egyptian gypsy lady today evidently
- football days- Je love the football weather as well
- October- let's count- 21 days until my birthday.
- David- even though I was mad at him earlier because he was being a boy- if you need clarification as to what "being a boy" means, ask any girl.
- my roommates- they are so fun
- chocolate covered donuts, no need for explanation
- cheap pants
- knowing lots of people
- smelling nice
- clean towels

10 things that are completely random but made me happy today. 11 on the list is nap time which is now. I heart you all. Sorry I missed low-key girls' night. I am all over the next one for sure though.

Yeah I'm funny

2005-09-30T18:58:50Z

ok- so I was sitting in bed last night pondering and had a really great post in mind. It is gone now- lost somewhere in my head or in my bed (which rhyme)- maybe it fell out of my head whilst I slept. So we're going to go with a different approach. I have a lot to do and am not stressed about it at all- which is good- but is bad as well because there is no sense of urgency and there should be. Oh well. I have adopted a new philosophy for my life. One that I have been living out this year so far (which I am so happy about) but because I am me, I need to define it. It makes it easier for me to do that. I am going to have a written purpose and make decisions based on what would bring me closer to fulfilling my purpose. It is going to be awesome. Do you ever crack yourself up? I do on a daily basis. Part of my new philosophy is to embrace who you are- it is ok to compliment yourself- don't be a ___ (insert whatever word fits your idea of a pretentious person) and exalt yourself but accept that you have good qualities and don't be ashamed of that. There is always room for improvement but c'mon- you secretly like stuff about yourself. Don't lie. I want everyone to list three things they like about themselves. I know it sounds like therapy, but Sue (the all-knowing Sue)says everyone needs a good dose of therapy. She should know- she's had tons. I am out for the weekend. Feel free to call or whatever. I heart you guys. Au revoir!

List time...

2005-09-22T22:58:43Z

OK- things I am going to do before I die (I hope):
1. See a tornado in real life- kinda like chase it
2. Speak a second language
3. Own a business
4. Sky dive
5. See Niagra and Victoria Falls
6. Be in a magazine
7. See Australia
8. Ballroom dance in a big dancing dress
9. Have a pet squirrel
10. Highlight my hair

Normal post- you can only read this one after you

2005-09-18T12:28:13Z

Some people may not know but my family is not normal- either side- we're all crazy. I promise. I have crazy aunts that beat your crazy aunts and family stories that win. I promise. Here is one of them:

I have an aunt that lives in Batesville. She is my dad's sister and she is unmarried. She has a big heart for animals and owns 4 cats and 3 dogs. This makes her crazy. Anyway, she had asked if I could come by occasionally in the next two weeks and check on them so she could come to Nashville and work the next two weeks. Sure I say- I'm not going everyday, maybe once or twice a week. No problem. So, David comes to visit on Friday and we were supposed to go to Batesville to feed/check on the cats- which we didn't- and were planning to on Saturday morning, when my dad called and said my grandfather (his dad) had died. OK- so David and I then pack up and run some errands and are going to go home through Batesville, feed the dang cats and go home through Memphis (this adds about an hour to the overall trip home because we're not going the normal,right way). Neither David or I like cats. At all and especially not these because they're dumb. ok- so we drive and drive to the opposite side of B'ville and David calls me laughing. He had sent my mom a text message and the conversation went something like this:

D:I am going to kill...I mean feed some cats.
Sue (my mom): Well, bring back the corpse and we will bury it and Sally can be double upset.

The thing is- my mom was just trying to prove a point that my aunt would be just as upset if one of her cats died as she would since her father died. Maybe you don't think it is funny, but it is, I assure you. Maybe a bit disrespectful, but you need to truly understand the entire situation to know it wasn't at all. My grandfather hated Sally's cats more than anyone. He would have laughed.

Serious post- Boo!

2005-09-18T12:26:28Z

ok- so I am going to update now. Good plan. I hate doing this because I don't think it is a big deal really and I hate it when people use events in their life to draw pity- so know this is not the intention here. I feel like when something happens, you deal with it and move on. Maybe its right, maybe its not but regardless that is how I do things usually. ok- so my grandfather died Saturday morning. It is sad but he was sick for a long time and really sick recently so it is almost a blessing for him. Anyway, I was praying last night and was thanking God for so many things- a safe trip back home, David, my family, being able to be at school and my grandfather's life. I got to thinking about his life and wondered if, in 83 years, he was satisfied. I don't want to be 83 and sick and think, "Man-I wish I'd done ______." or " I really regret not doing (or doing) _______". There is no way to go through life with no regrets (I hate word because I think you can go through life with no regrets but not mistakes- I guess regrets are conscious decisions and mistakes are just that- mistakes- like taking a wrong turn)There are always going to be things that you wish you'd done differently but I don't want that to outweigh the things I am proud of or enjoyed. OK- so saying all that- life is TOO short (even at 83 yrs.-that leaves me with 75% of my life to live and it is moving quickly)to be bickering about stupid crap. Stop getting offended so easily, laugh about stuff that may not be traditionally funny because chances are it is funnier than you think (My mom told a joke that was a bit off color but hysterical- I will include it) and get over yourself- if this applies to you like it does me then please don't take it too personally and if it doesn't then wait up- I'm about to join you.

beccasue37 @ 2005-09-13T06:22:00

2005-09-13T11:24:11Z

I want to sleep really really bad. I would do so much better with some sleep. Real-I-Don't-Have-to-be-up-at-any-time-sleep. I am taking a nap today. Try and stop me and I will make one of Wayne's zombies eat you.

I'm a bandwagoner

2005-09-07T16:54:09Z

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.

1.~How did you meet iamclarkkent1? Honors College
2.~What would you do if you had never met desireepannell? Not nearly be as cool as I am today
3.~What do you honestly think of kimbro? OH man! SO SWEET!
4.~Would or did pannell0616 and msharpie go out? doubtful
5.~Have you ever liked katieanne41? always
6.~If jrmoore65 died tomorrow, what is one thing that you would need him/her to know? That I truly think he is fantastic
7.~Would pannell0616 and pannell0616 make a good couple? probably not
8.~Describe gblackwell in 3 words: dang crazy kid
9.~Do you think bartender_wayne is hot? of course
10.~Would jrmoore65 and angelw_outwings make a lovely couple? probably not
11.~What do you think of when you see msharpie? MATT!
12.~Tell me something humiliating about pannell0616: I think he put granola between his toes
13.~Do you know any of laurabeerigby's family members? yes
14.~What's pannell0616's favorite color? blue
15.~On a scale of 1-10 how cute is jayacee11? 15
16.~What would you do if happyaccidents just professed their undying love for you? laugh
17.~What language does pannell0616 speak? english
18.~Who is jaimeebrianne going out with? Yo mama
19.~Is pannell0616 a boy or a girl? boy
20.~Would deltaprincess and happyaccidents make a good couple? no
21.~Who do you think phil413 would be great with from this list? no one
22.~When was the last time you talked to bartender_wayne? Last Tuesday
23.~What is katieanne41's favorite band? all bands
24.~Does pannell0616 have any siblings? yes- they love Pannell on this thing
25.~Would you ever date laurabeerigby? yes
26.~Would you ever date gblackwell? no- sorry Garreth but I think you would agree
27.~Is phil413 single? no
28.~What is pannell0616's last name? Pannell
29.~What is deltaprincess's middle name? I don;t know
30~What is kimbro's fantasy? I don't know
31.~Where does pannell0616 live? a house
32.~Would you make out with iamclarkkent1? no- once again- I think he would agree
33.~Are desireepannell and laurabeerigby best friends? no
34.~Does gblackwell like pannell0616? i hope so
35.~How did you meet deltaprincess? honors college
36.~Is bartender_wayne older than you? yes
37.~Is angelw_outwings the sexiest person alive? absolutely

beccasue37 @ 2005-08-31T12:24:00

2005-08-31T17:27:58Z

Hey guys!
I know a ton of you have families and stuff to worry about but if anyone is interested- the BSU is a drop off spot for food, bedding, towels and toiletries for people coming to Oxford. They are expecting to fill up the local churches. People are going to need to eat for at least a week here since they can't go home. SO- if you have ANYTHING, take it to the BSU (it will be used here in Oxford for evacuees) or to the Union (to be taken to the Coast, I think). These churches are also going to need people to help serve the food starting tonight. If you have any questions or information, let me know- I also want updates on everyone's families (Matt Sharpe, Kim, Carly, etc.). Here is my number- call me- 615-838-4514. Bye.

Hurricanes

2005-08-29T18:23:02Z

ok- so I am obsessed with the hurricane and am going to make Bailey read about it and all but in all actuality it is frightening. I don't even own anything near the coast or have loved ones there but I know lots of people who do and who are scared and worried about not only the storm itself, but what happens afterward. I'm working on getting disaster relief info to as many people as I know but, in all reality, it will be a while before anyone knows what to do or how to help. If you know of anything let me know so I can get that info out to people. I don't even know what to think about all this hurricane business because it is new to me, but I was just informed that "it" was in Jackson now and that it was looking bad there. Mississippi State is out of school. It's weird to me to be affected by this at all. My heart is breaking over and over again as I see pictures of people wandering the streets of New Orleans trying (still) to get to the Superdome (which is leaking)and when I hear reports of friends' houses that are flooding and the 9th Ward flooding and buildings being damaged. It really is crazy to me. I have spent a lot of time in prayer for SPECIFIC PEOPLE (Laura's family, Matt's family, Suzanne's family, Chris's family etc.) and their safety and that damage be minimal but also for the people who I don't know anything about. People that are completely separated from me. Anyway, it is all a little surreal for me and I'm just going to get rain in Oxford. I am thinking about you guys who this is really going to affect.

OK-

2005-08-29T18:08:42Z

OK- SO everyone feel sorry for Bailey Braseth- the boy I tutor. I am slightly obsessed with the hurricane and am going to make him read about them. I have printed off pages of insightful information that he needs to know. It is all about how and why hurricanes happen and stuff. It is fantastic. He will love it. Maybe not but oh well.

Stolen from Allison

2005-08-24T16:57:08Z

A- Age of 1st kiss: 5th grade- Keith Jenkins

B- Band you are listening to right now: I was listening to some Edith Piaf earlier

C- 1st Crush: Jarrod Mangrum...maybe Thomas Varden

D- Dad's name: Richard Tydings Morrison the 4th!

E- Easiest person to talk to: David- ok- that is cheesy I know

F- Favorite ice cream: GREEN mint chocolate chip

G- Gummy worms or gummy bear?: worms

H- Hometown: Fairview, TN

I- Instruments: none- I used to play trumpet but now it is the radio

J- Junior high: Fairview Middle School

K- Kids: none...ever

L- Longest car ride ever: the one back to my house after we put my dog to sleep- everyone be depressed now

M- Mom's name: Susan Brister Morrison

N- Nicknames: Becca, Bec, Mighty Mouse (Laura's)

O- One wish: to be awesome forever

P- Phobia[s]: spiders and biological warfare

Q- Quote: right now: "I'd rather be rich than stupid"

R- Reason(s) to smile: thinking about dessert or SCUBA!

S- Song you sang last: Get that dirt off your shoulders...

T- Time you woke up today: 6 am- the procrastination has begun. Had to finish some homework

U- Unknown fact about me: I have scoliosis

V- Virgin: oui

W- Worst habit: biting my nails

X- How many X-rays you've had: I think 2- I have no idea, I made that up

Y- Your least favorite person as of right now: Eve

Z- Zodiac sign: Scorpio- STING~! I stung you cause I'm a scorpion

This was crazy.

It's Ova!

2005-08-22T17:07:17Z

OK- When I was in high school, a friend of mine named Bobby Sullivan who spoke with a slight lisp and could have been on the defensive line for our not-always-so-awesome football team, decided to join the class for our annual field trip. In the slow English classes, they had read Diary of Anne Frank, so in a sad attempt to culture the rednecks from Fairview, the teachers took us to see the play. Well, we saw it and it was good and everyone cried and all and at the end of the play (that I am sure Bobby slept through) he stood up and faced the crowd and said, "It's ova! It's ova!" while applauding wildly. I couldn't have said it better myself, Bobby. It's OVA! The retreat is ova, the kinda sleeping in is ova, and the free afternoons are ova. I am ok with it all actually. I don't want to be super busy all the time but I think that I am going to be the good kind of busy. Busy doing things I like to do- like water aerobics (5:30 pm tonight at the Turner Center) and stuff. I haven't been to many classes yet but they don't look bad. Things for me are so great now- good jobs, good money, good friends and roommates, good body (for me- I am pleased), good opportunities and other good stuff. Anyway, it might be ova, but it ain't entirely ova until Bobby sings.

It has begun...

2005-08-17T14:40:41Z

yes, the craziness that is the Honors College Retreat, move-in and Rush practices (which only really affects my parking spots and ears- I hear them screaming their cheers- it isn't bad though)has started. I am ok with that but a large part of me wants Oxford to stay quiet and slow. Oh well. Gotta go!

learn something new everyday

2005-08-11T21:18:53Z

I learned something about myself today- When I get mad or angry I clinch by butt. Thank you for teaching me something new Printing Services.